It’s a Saturday morning, and Lorre Atlan, a fourth year bioengineering PhD student at Penn, is at a community center in West Philadelphia teaching kids science. “It’s SEA’s (Science Education Academy) Saturday Science Lessons. [We] go through a science lesson with them. Vocabulary, scientific method, math, which they don’t like! They are not fans of math. They are like, ‘Why are we doing math?’” Lorre asks them, “You like science, right?” “Yeah!” they answer. And then she asks, “You like the experiments, right?” “Yeah!” “Well then you need math!” she responds, laughing. She explains that each Saturday they go through a lesson and do an experiment with elementary school students in the second to fifth grade. Lorre works with The Science Education Academy Inc., in partnership with White Rock Baptist Church Ministry to Youth & Children and the E. E. Just Biomedical Society of the University of Pennsylvania. The driving motivation behind the program is the lack of basic scientific exposure in early education, particularly at the elementary level. Instead, schools are focusing on math and reading, primarily due to pressures to increase standardized test scores. While this focus on math and reading is not necessarily a poor choice, it leaves students with little scientific experience and thus fewer students choose to enter the field for advanced studies. In addition to volunteering for the Saturday Science Lessons, Lorre was involved in planning and executing the first annual Science Carnival at the White Rock Baptist Church. “There were over 50 children (K-6) and their parents. We also had over 40 volunteers including 24 students from the University of Pennsylvania in Biomedical Graduate Studies, School of Engineering, Earth and Environmental sciences and the Chemistry Department. We also had enthusiastic high school chaperones.”

Lorre (far right) and the entire coordinating committee for the 2nd annual Science Carnival at the White Rock Baptist Church.

“The best part of it is seeing the kids, seeing their eyes light up! And watching them get it. Watching them fall in love with science. Those are the things I didn’t get as a kid growing up. Some of the resources just weren’t there when I lived in Jamaica.” Lorre grew up in Jamaica and moved to the US to attend Johns Hopkins University as an undergraduate majoring in biomedical engineering. Today, she is a fourth year PhD student in the UPenn Bioengineering Department, studying traumatic brain injury using finite element modeling techniques in Susan Margulies’ lab. She says that she is so drawn to this type of outreach because she wants to pass on both her knowledge and passion for science. “This is the fun part of science. We become PhDs and little by little it’s eaten away…” she says laughing. “Sorry! But you know what I mean. It gets over-run by the politics. You write a paper and then you are just submitting it over and over. You almost forget why you started, right? It’s good to do these things for me to be reminded—oh yeah I remember this! The magic of science [comes back]. It’s about not losing sight of the joy of science.” “I feel like it’s so easy to get channeled into your own little field…you know everything and then you’re skeptical and pessimistic about everything. Nothing works! So it’s nice when you can go and talk to kids. I love it! They get so visibly excited. I think that’s the best part.” And the carnival sounded really fun. It opened with an egg drop experiment to discuss pressure and covered a wide range of topics including microbes, the spread of disease, how planes fly, and the mysteries of chemistry. SEA looks forward to making this an annual event as a supplement to the Philadelphia School District science curriculum and as a conduit for public scientific education. Lorre tells us that this supplementation is important because many young students, particularly minority students that she works with, need mentoring along the way in order to succeed in classes and enter scientific fields. Part of it, Lorre explains, is as simple as, “Realizing that someone who looks like them can do good things, can go pursue science.” Her work with minority school districts in both Baltimore and Philadelphia has taught her a lot about the crucial need for mentoring. “You need mentoring, you need everything you can, just to get people into science and engineering, because it’s so hard.” And the challenges are not over when a student makes it into an engineering undergraduate program. Lorre’s experience at Johns Hopkins definitely had bumps along the way. “You’re coming in and you are not just the only female [in some classes], but you are limited by race as well. This [the work load] is hard, everyone around you is struggling. People form their cliques and tend to stay with people they are familiar with. People don’t want to work with you.” You can imagine that this would be incredibly hard to deal with in challenging classes where other people are working together on problem sets and you have nowhere to turn.

I feel like it’s so easy to get channeled into your own little field…you know everything and then you’re skeptical and pessimistic about everything. Nothing works! So it’s nice when you can go and talk to kids. I love it! They get so visibly excited. I think that’s the best part.”

Lorre dispensing food at St. Peter's Cupboard.

“You go in and get to college and it’s hard, intellectually. And then there is other stuff, where people aren’t helpful and you have to do it on your own. I don’t think that’s what college should be. Especially in engineering. You have to work with people.” Lorre was fortunate to overcome these initial challenges and by her junior year was feeling pretty confident in both her skills as an engineer and her interpersonal relationships. Although starting out at Hopkins was a difficult transition, “Hopkins was just opening up the floodgates of opportunities.” That was when she first became involved in after school scientific mentoring and became passionate about bioengineering research. When she came to Penn for her PhD, she tells us that, “Penn was the perfect fit for me. [There is an] active student community, people actually engaging with each other.” Right now, she’s beginning to think about what’s next after her PhD is complete. “Right now I’m at a PhD level. Do I see myself becoming faculty? No. And I do wonder what sort of societal pressure I’m being influenced by that make me think, ‘Oh no, I can’t do that.’ And maybe I’ll change my mind, I’ve changed my mind before. But I doubt it.” She tells us that she can see herself as a teacher—a role she is clearly passionate about already. “I like teaching, I like communicating with people.” And, she notes that often people who are skilled researchers or scientists do not translate into the best teachers. “One of the things I’ve seen from [Johns] Hopkins is that it’s difficult for faculty to be very good teachers and perform well in the research. I feel like you definitely have to choose. And if I had to choose I would choose teaching.” One thing she would definitely like to do is return to her high school in Jamaica and work with students there. “Just going back and organizing engineering competitions. It would really mean a lot to go back and organize some of the things I didn’t have. That’s something I’ve thought about. And maybe doing it every year…just let them know that these fields exist.” Until then, you’ll find Lorre leading the Science Lessons at SEA or planning next year’s Science Carnival… just bringing a little science magic along with her. ;)

Interested in learning more about SEA and the Science Carnival? Check out...

This article is a continuation of our chat with Dr. Meagher from last week! You can read Part I here, where Dr. Meagher talks about her childhood, medical training, her family, and advice she gives to her own children. Today, we talk to Dr. Meagher about her favorite projects at Penn, translational research, and her visions for the future of biomedical science.

At Penn, Dr. Meagher tells us that one of her favorite undertakings is the work she has done in the educational sector to bridge the gap between MD-educated clinicians and PhD scientists. “The reality is that most of what informs clinical care is what happens in the space in-between the two.” She says that she is most proud of her work in, “Building an educational opportunity in that interspace…marrying the concepts derived from the bench into the delivery of diagnostics or treatment approaches for improvement of patient care. That has been a real labor of love.” When Dr. Meagher began working at Penn in the mid-1990s, there was no infrastructure available for this type of bridging to take place. Today, there are a number of programs designed to support undergraduates, pre-doctoral research students, medical students, residents, fellows, and faculty in maneuvering across this gap. Most notably, Dr. Meagher is the Program Director of the Masters in Translational Research Program, for medical students interested in working as investigators in the translational research space.

In addition to her work in education, Dr. Meagher also found the process of taking a drug through from bench research to FDA approval to be particularly fulfilling. “I worked with a team on bringing a drug the whole way through to FDA approval, and that was neat.” The drug was for patients with a genetic form of hypercholesterolemia and it lowers LDL cholesterol. (She asks us, “Do you remember that from your lectures?”) She and Dr. Dan Rader were collaborators on this project and Dr. Meagher was the PI on many of the Phase I, II, and III clinical protocols.Check out one of Dr. Meagher's recently published papers from this project here.

...marrying the concepts derived from the bench into the delivery of diagnostics or treatment approaches for improvement of patient care. That has been a real labor of love.”

All of this experience in the translational research world has given Dr. Meagher a very clear idea of the progress within and existing barriers to bringing high quality research into clinical practice. Many of her roles at the University focus on one large question, “How do we facilitate translational science?” “In this translational science world, what we end up seeing is a lot of very bright, motivated people saying, ‘It’s not worth the hassle.’ All of these hurdles, apparent or real, provide a huge disincentive to people engaging in this space.” Besides the difficulties of IRB approval and GLP (Good Laboratory Practice) protocols, there is the issue of conflict of interest—you cannot financially benefit from your research. “That stifles innovation.”

“At a place like Penn, and part of the reason I’ve never felt of what I do as a job, the people you are surrounded by are so friggin’ smart, it’s like this cauldron of potential. All spilling over with ideas of what they want to do.” Dr. Meagher is interested in helping people move these ideas forward and bring them to fruition. She tells us that at the moment she is putting a lot of her time and energy into figuring out ways to help people move these translational projects along in a way in which, “…their energy and their expertise isn’t sucked dry by picky nonsense along the way.” Amongst her many projects in this area, her team is seeking approval for a Masters of Regulatory Science program and asking questions about whether the current construct for human drug development really makes sense. Is there a better way we can be doing this? When we ask her what she sees as the next big movements in scientific world, she tells us that they really go hand-in-hand with how the regulatory process is carried out. The work that has been carried out in Carl June’s lab in the immunotherapy space is one model for translational medicine. His lab developed CART immunotherapy, in which immune cells (T cells) are drawn from a patient's blood. Then, using CAR technology, the T cells are re-coded to identify and seek out cells that express proteins present on a patient's cancerous tumor. When the T cells are re-introduced into the patient's blood, they bind to the targeted cancer cells and destroy them. (Learn more here!)

“Immunotherapy really gives you a window into the potential of taking a patient and developing a treatment for that patient.” Though we hear the term “personalized medicine” constantly, this is where it is truly coming into play. “I think the paradigm of immunotherapy opens the potential for us being very creative in how we bring novel innovations into humans.” “Maybe I’m just a ridiculous optimist, but I really do feel that I’m going to see [the success of personalized medicine] within my lifetime. I really do get the sense that we are on the cusp of making really tangible changes. And the reason we are is because regulatory bodies realize they are impeding progress. Academia is realizing that they can’t go solo. And pharma is realizing that the era of perennial blockbuster drugs is diminishing. I think that those three windows are all occurring in tandem. I really think we’re about to do some really neat things. And I love that it’s going to derive from academia.” Recently Dr. Meagher’s husband, eight years her senior, has mentioned retirement. Dr. Meagher is just so excited about what she is doing—she says, “I’ll join you on the nineteenth hole, but I’m not stopping.” Though she is proud of what she has accomplished thus far in her career, “I think I’m only half-way there.”

Maybe I’m just a ridiculous optimist, but I really do feel that I’m going to see [the success of personalized medicine] within my lifetime."

However, Dr. Meagher says she does value her free time, during which you will always find her with her family. “What makes me happy is spending time with my family. Just, nothing like it. Drinking a bottle of wine with my kids. That is by far and away the thing that makes me happiest. The sustained happiness from being surrounded by family…having an unbelievably happy marriage, that’s been huge. Spending time with Noel, spending time with the kids…I sound like a Mastercard ad, but that’s truly priceless.”

Want to hear more? Listen to Dr. Meagher talk about her daily routine and how she wears all her different hats at Penn!